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I´ve always asked myself when a city/urban area is plastered with an artillery barrage, why just the lower walls show visible damage, but never the roofs. It also appears to me that buildings get destroyed bottom up and not vice versa. Was that always the case in the game (CMBN V4, all modules active), or is it a problem with my install? Here´s a screenshot from unmodded end game screen:

In preceding turns there were numerous hits from 105mm US artillery (beside bits of medium mortar) in the area, particularly on all the roofs of visible buildings, but as can be seen damage is only shown on the lower walls. Buildings is a mix of mödular and independent. The church barely visible to the left off course doesn´t show a single scratch.

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It doesn't mean that it is safer on the top floor. It is just that there are are only 2 or 3 graphics for roof destruction. I'm not sure of the exact percentage but, somewhere around a third of the roof has to be damaged before it shows up. You can lose an entire Squad on the top floor and the roof will still look untouched.

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There are two types of buildings, modular and independent buildings. And only the latter can have damaged roofs. The ones on the picture where you see damages on the second floor for instance must be independent buildings and it is possible to add damage to the roof. The scenario creator chose not to I suppose but for these it is possible.

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There are some issues with how the game handles artillery damage to buildings. Damage from direct hits seems quite small, whereas the combined effect of many distant impacts will cause the building to collapse. My uneducated guess would be that in a real situation, it would be the other way around.

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There are two types of buildings, modular and independent buildings. And only the latter can have damaged roofs. The ones on the picture where you see damages on the second floor for instance must be independent buildings and it is possible to add damage to the roof. The scenario creator chose not to I suppose but for these it is possible.

Adding roof damage in the editor is not the issue. For modular buildings it´s ALT+SHIFT+Click and for independent ones it´s CTRL+Click (on the roof). Yet It´s a double edged sword affair. While it looks more realistic to have a map (and buildings in particular) look war torn, damaged roofs make the upper story unusable for infantry right from the start. The Stalingrad mod I think adds more of these war torn looks on undamaged buildings to compensate somewhat.

I did some further testing on modular buildings (8x8m) and US 105mm artillery. It makes bits of a difference when either using "General" or "Personnell" effects missions here. Judging just from the explosion graphics all hits are on the outside of buildings, yet the "General" FX mission appears more to cause damage from near hits outside the building on the ground. "Personnell" FX missions do more erode the buildings top down from my observations and I also noticed occasional roof damage, even some upper stories collapsing. However, when this happens the buildings are right before complete collapse, most likely happening the same game turn.

I do not judge damage effects on any building occupants here. I simply have no idea and many variables may apply here (blast, shrapnel, debris...). What I´d wish for is more visible damage (incl. light one), not just right before the moment a building is about to collapse and particularly at the shell hit locations. Sort of hit decals might do the trick in many occasions, but there´would likely be a trade-off in game performance.